Illinois Governor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/j-b-pritzker" target="_blank" rel="noopener">J.B. Pritzker</a> praised a proposed AP African American Studies <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">curriculum</a> that includes “black queer” theory and has been criticized by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as pushing Left-wing activism under the guise of history.
The curriculum, developed by the College Board and currently undergoing <a href="https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/about-ap/how-ap-develops-courses-and-exams/pilot-ap-african-american-studies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pilots</a> at five dozen high schools across the nation, reportedly focuses on radical leftist beliefs. The Florida Department of Education, which mandates traditional black history in public schools, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/contrary-to-florida-law-desantis-rejects-high-school-course-emerging-nationwide-over-wokeness-concerns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blasted</a> the material as “contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” and called on the influential organization to revise it to be “historically accurate.”
Pritzker, however, said he supports weaving in lessons on such subjects as &#8220;black queer&#8221; perspectives, &#8220;intersectionality&#8221; and the so-called reparations movement.
“Illinois expects any AP course offered on African American studies to include a factual accounting of history, including the role played by black queer Americans,&#8221; Pritzker said. &#8220;Illinois will closely examine the official coursework to ensure it includes all necessary history, starting with this nation’s foundation built on slavery, the Civil War where this nation reckoned with that history, and the decades of rebuilding and efforts of black Americans to continue their fight for equality and equity to this day.”
AP courses are university-level classes offered in some high schools and often translate to college credit. Pritzker said in a <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000185-ebca-d065-a59d-fbdfc8e10000" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> addressed to College Board CEO David Coleman that the nonprofit should “preserve the fundamental right to an education” regardless of “political grandstanding” from Florida Republicans.
While supporters of teaching African American studies have argued for including sometimes controversial cultural aspects, some critics assert that such courses often serve as a front for teaching Left-wing advocacy and grievance studies. DeSantis <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/theyre-advocating-for-things-like-abolishing-prisons-desantis-discusses-why-he-banned-african-american-studies-course" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that the current version of the AP African American Studies curriculum includes radical theoretical policies such as abolishing prisons.
“They’re advocating things like abolishing prisons,&#8221; said DeSantis, who last year signed into a law a measure that bars Florida public schools from teaching discrimination on the basis of race, color, or sex. &#8220;Now that’s a radical political position,” he told reporters. “You’re free to take that in your own life, I don’t think very many people think that would actually work, but how is that being taught as fact?”
The College Board recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/college-board-will-release-framework-for-controversial-african-american-studies-course-on-first-day-of-black-history-month" target="_blank" rel="noopener">indicated</a> that the course will undergo revisions before its public release in February, a move meant to correspond with the advent of Black History Month.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker Attends Transgender Support Rally In Chicago

Illinois Governor Backs Including ‘Black Queer’ Theory, Other Controversial Lessons In African American Studies

Illinois Governor Backs Including 'Black Queer' Theory, Other Controversial Lessons In African American Studies

College

Critical Race Theory

Education

J.B. Pritzker

Ron DeSantis

U.S.

Indiana taxpayers shelled out more than $100,000 to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1619 Project</a> author <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-writer-demanded-40k-for-45-minute-speech-busting-librarys-budget/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nikole Hannah-Jones</a> for just over 24 hours of work, according to a contract obtained by The Daily Wire under public records laws.
The deal between the Trustees of Indiana University and Hannah-Jones&#8217; speakers bureau said the university would pay $101,700 for a &#8220;2022 Themester Lecture on Identity and Identification.&#8221; The &#8220;Themester&#8221; reference meant that for an entire semester, Indiana students were told to focus on the &#8220;theme&#8221; of identity.
&#8220;During the fall of 2022, we invite members of the College and campus community to reflect on identity and all that it entails,&#8221; the university&#8217;s <a href="https://themester.indiana.edu/policies-and-planning/themester-2022/index.html">website</a> says. &#8220;Race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, nationality, native language, socio-economic status, and myriad other identities shape our worldview: how we see, how we portray ourselves, and how we are perceived (and received).&#8221;
The &#8220;themester&#8221; is run by an advisory committee that includes a gender studies professor and undergraduates &#8220;majoring in Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance&#8221; and &#8220;Anthropology and Folklore and Ethnomusicology.&#8221;
Indiana is a deep-red state. Its governor, Eric Holcomb, is a Republican, and its state legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. The university did not return a Daily Wire request for comment on whether the six-figure sum was a wise expenditure of taxpayer money or whether it reflects the desires of Indiana&#8217;s electorate.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-493019" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/indiana-ss.png" alt="" width="832" height="596" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss.png 832w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss-300x215.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss-804x576.png 804w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/indiana-ss-768x550.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px" /></div>
The lavish paycheck was in return for Hannah-Jones arriving on the afternoon on October 19 and participating in two classroom discussions followed by a &#8220;dinner-party with invited students and Union Board directors involving some discussion, but no prepared remarks from Speaker.&#8221; The next day, she was to participate in two more classroom sessions, followed by a &#8220;30-min public lecture, and 30 minutes of moderated discussion/q&amp;a with the audience. A meet/greet and booksigning will conclude the program.&#8221;
The $101,700 is the largest known sum of taxpayer money paid for a single engagement to the woman who has parlayed her assertions that America is &#8220;one of the most unequal societies in the history of the world&#8221; into a lucrative enterprise. Hannah-Jones was raised in Iowa, the daughter of a mixed-race couple.
The Daily Wire previously obtained records for 11 speeches she made in 2022, averaging $40,000 even though some were made online. She made at least 33 speeches last year, which at that average figure would work out to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.2 million</a> in 2022 speaking fees.
Most of the speeches were at universities, despite <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/historians-shred-nyt-1619-project-claiming-slavery-defines-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">historians</a> from across the political spectrum pointing to significant errors in her writing, down to the foundational assertion that America&#8217;s colonists fought for independence from Britain in order to preserve slavery.
The speeches also serve to promote her book, which earned an estimated $2 million in royalties.
Among her other income sources, Hannah-Jones received nearly $75,000 not to work at the University of North Carolina last year as part of a legal settlement. In 2020, Hannah-Jones inked a deal with Oprah Winfrey and Lionsgate to develop 1619 “into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content,” including a Hulu series that will premier this month.
Despite her heavy speech schedule, the New York Times Magazine writer is employed by Howard University following the Knight Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and other philanthropists earmarking $25 million.
The list of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speeches</a> is:
<ul>
<li>1/19/2022: Union League Club of Chicago</li>
<li>1/21/2022: Metro State University-Denver (via Zoom) $25,000</li>
<li>1/25/2022: University of Wisconsin $55,000</li>
<li>1/16/2022: University of Buffalo</li>
<li>1/31/2022: Grand Rapids Community College $25,000</li>
<li>2/1/2022: Fordham University</li>
<li>2/9/2022: University of Houston (via Zoom)</li>
<li>3/15/2022: Notre Dame</li>
<li>3/22/2022: Southern Methodist University</li>
<li>3/23/2022: Macalester College (via Zoom)</li>
<li>3/25/2022: University of Lynchburg</li>
<li>3/30/2022: U-Conn $36,500</li>
<li>4/1/2022: SUNY-Brockport $50,000</li>
<li>4/15/2022: Dartmouth</li>
<li>4/26/2022: Colby College</li>
<li>5/3/2022: University of Maryland $40,500</li>
<li>5/5/2022: St Johns University</li>
<li>5/17/2022: Rutgers</li>
<li>5/21/2022: NC A&amp;T State U</li>
<li>9/20/2022: Arlington, VA library $40,000</li>
<li>9/24/2022: The Links Inc (via Zoom)</li>
<li>9/27/2022: Sarah Lawrence University</li>
<li>10/11/2022: Lehigh University</li>
<li>10/13/2022: Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis</li>
<li>10/20/2022: Indiana University $101,700</li>
<li>10/27/2022: Northern Illinois University (via Zoom) $30,000</li>
<li>10/28/2022: Syracuse University</li>
<li>11/2/2022: Iowa State University $38,000</li>
<li>11/7/2022: French Embassy</li>
<li>11/18/2022: Newark Public Library</li>
<li>11/19/2022: Cleveland Library (via Zoom) $20,000</li>
<li>11/20/2022: Howard University School of Law / Pulitzer Center</li>
<li>12/6/2022: University of Minnesota $50,000</li>
</ul>

2021 Morehouse College Commencement

Indiana Taxpayers Shelled Out $101,700 To 1619 Project Author For Two Days’ Work

Indiana Taxpayers Shelled Out $101,700 To 1619 Project Author For Two Days' Work

1619 Project

Indiana

Indiana University

Nikole Hannah-Jones

A Florida Democratic lawmaker in favor of teaching a controversial AP African American Studies in high schools blasted the state on Monday, arguing that students shouldn&#8217;t be shielded from BLM or &#8220;black queerness.&#8221;
The Florida Department of Education recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/contrary-to-florida-law-desantis-rejects-high-school-course-emerging-nationwide-over-wokeness-concerns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">informed</a> the board that the course’s content lacked educational value, taking special issue with sections on &#8220;Queer Black Studies,&#8221; the reparations movement, and &#8220;movements for black lives,&#8221; among others. But State Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat, suggested to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/23/1150716064/florida-ap-african-american-studies">NPR</a> that those topics should be embraced, not shunned.
&#8220;Some of the things that they were speaking about in it were talking about the black struggle, it was talking about the Black Lives Matter movement, it spoke about black queerness. &#8230; These are not issues that we should be shying away from, or shielding away from students,&#8221; said Jones.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed legislation last year preventing the state’s government schools from teaching discrimination on the basis of race, color, or sex, detailed a number of his <a href="https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1617550727534252032" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concerns</a> on Monday. Among them is the way the curriculum shoehorns esoteric academic theories into what has been dubbed in legacy media as a history course.
“Now who would say that an important part of black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda on our kids, and so when you look to see they have stuff about intersectionality, abolishing prisons, that’s a political agenda. And so, that’s the wrong side of the line for Florida standards,&#8221; he said.
The Department of Education said it would reconsider its decision to block the course if the curriculum were changed.
While proponents of teaching African American Studies have argued that the courses encourage holistic thinking about American history, skeptics note that the curricula primarily emphasize narratives of left-wing advocacy and grievance. The College Board’s website suggests that a major in the subject can prepare a student for only <a href="https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/choosing-courses/major-career-results/major/african-american-studies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one</a> career field, community organizing and activism, even as the organization says a history major can prepare students for a <a href="https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/choosing-courses/major-career-results/major/history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multitude</a> of careers, including anthropology, law, and foreign service.
Currently, the course is taught in several dozen schools as a pilot, according to The College Board, which develops curricula for high school students to receive college credit before they attend university.
The College Board has so far declined to publicly release the African American studies curriculum, asserting that the material contains proprietary information. The course is expected to undergo changes before any nationwide implementation.

Shevrin Jones

Florida Democrat Defends Controversial HS Class: Teach ‘Black Queerness,’ ‘Black Lives Matter’

Florida Democrat Defends HS Class Ron DeSantis Blocked: Teach 'Black Queerness' And 'Black Lives Matter'

Florida

Florida Republican Gov. <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/ron-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ron DeSantis</a> discussed his reasons for barring public high schools in the state from offering the AP African American Studies course presently in development by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/education" target="_blank" rel="noopener">College Board</a>.
The Florida Department of Education recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/contrary-to-florida-law-desantis-rejects-high-school-course-emerging-nationwide-over-wokeness-concerns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">informed</a> the organization that the course’s content is “inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” adding that the state would reconsider the course should the organization make the material “lawful” and “historically accurate.” DeSantis, who signed legislation last year preventing the state’s government schools from teaching discrimination on the basis of race, color, or sex, detailed a number of his <a href="https://twitter.com/FLVoiceNews/status/1617550727534252032" target="_blank" rel="noopener">concerns</a> with the course in a press conference.
“They’re advocating things like abolishing prisons. Now that’s a radical political position,” he told reporters. “You’re free to take that in your own life, I don’t think very many people think that would actually work, but how is that being taught as fact?”
DeSantis believes radical left-wing content in the AP African American Studies curriculum, which is currently undergoing <a href="https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/about-ap/how-ap-develops-courses-and-exams/pilot-ap-african-american-studies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pilots</a> at five dozen schools across the nation, stands blatantly at odds with the policies preferred by racial minorities.
“It’s not fair to say that somehow abolishing prisons is linked to black experiences, that that’s what black people want,” he continued. “I think they want law and order, just like anybody else wants law and order. So that is more ideology being used under the guise of history, and we want to do history.”
Approximately 28% of black people support defunding the police, according to a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/07/usa-today-ipsos-poll-just-18-support-defund-police-movement/4599232001/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">poll</a> from USA Today and Ipsos, while 18% of the overall population said the same. Another <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/support-black-lives-matter-plummets-among-african-americans-poll-1708122" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> from the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that some of the steepest declines in affirmation of the Black Lives Matter movement in recent months came from black respondents.
DeSantis added that he does not view black history as inherently distinct from the overall history of the nation.
“That’s what our standards for black history are: it’s just cut-and-dry history. You learn all the basics, you learn about the great figures,” he remarked. “I view it as American history. I don’t view it as separate history.”
While proponents of teaching African American Studies have argued that the courses encourage holistic thinking about American history, skeptics note that the curricula primarily emphasize narratives of left-wing advocacy and grievance. The College Board’s website suggests that a major in the subject can prepare a student for only <a href="https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/choosing-courses/major-career-results/major/african-american-studies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one</a> career field, community organizing and activism, even as the organization says a history major can prepare students for a <a href="https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/choosing-courses/major-career-results/major/history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multitude</a> of careers, including anthropology, law, and foreign service.
The College Board has so far declined to publicly release the African American Studies curriculum, asserting that the material contains proprietary information. The course is expected to undergo changes before any nationwide implementation.
Efforts to remove politicized content from government schools in Florida continue after DeSantis launched an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/florida-colleges-vow-to-ban-critical-race-theory-after-overhaul-from-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">overhaul</a> in the state university system’s use of diversity initiatives. The chief executive asked the postsecondary institutions to provide the state legislature with a brief description of each diversity program, the total funding used to support the program, and the portion of the funding that came from taxpayer dollars.
“We must ensure school systems are responsive to parents and to students, not partisan interest groups, and we must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology,” DeSantis remarked during his second inaugural <a href="https://www.flgov.com/2023/01/03/governor-desantis-delivers-inaugural-address-sets-priorities-for-second-term/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">address</a>. “We will enact more family-friendly policies to make it easier to raise children and we will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence.”
Eric Quintanar contributed to this report.

‘They’re Advocating For Things Like Abolishing Prisons’: DeSantis Discusses Why He Banned African American Studies Course

DeSantis Details Why He Banned African American Studies Course

Ethnic Studies

Politics

A teaching activist and self-styled &#8220;equity, diversity, and inclusion specialist&#8221; allegedly appeared to boast on video that he intentionally breaks Georgia <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/georgia-becomes-latest-us-state-ban-divisive-concepts-teaching-about-race-2022-04-28/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> by selling <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/critical-race-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critical Race Theory</a> (CRT) curriculum materials to teachers in multiple districts, and mocked Republican Georgia Gov. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/brian-kemp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brian Kemp</a> and his wife for being unaware of his scheme.
Video released by investigative organization <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/journalism-is-on-trial-project-veritas-ordered-to-pay-democratic-consulting-firm-over-2016-sting-operation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Project Veritas</a> on Wednesday morning appeared to show Dr. Quintin Bostic, who reportedly serves as <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230117231924/https://www.teachinglab.org/dr-quintin-bostic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">content manager</a> for The Teaching Lab, unknowingly speaking to an undercover journalist for the organization in numerous settings.
“I would say I’m a good salesman, but I’m also an evil salesman,&#8221; Bostic brags about selling the CRT curriculum to be used on kids in kindergarten.
According to the activist, using the term &#8220;diversity, equity, and inclusion,&#8221; or &#8220;DEI,&#8221; instead of CRT, is a good way to sneak in the content. “If you don’t say the words ‘Critical Race Theory,’ you can technically teach it,&#8221; he explained, adding that DEI “is more accepted than, like, anti-racist education or Critical Race Theory.”
Bostic then dissed the state for having &#8220;no clue&#8221; he&#8217;s pushing CRT materials, noting that two districts — Cobb County and Fulton County — are using his materials. &#8220;There are teachers of color who are like, I want to use this,&#8221; the activist said. Children can now learn the curriculum and eventually teach their own parents, Bostic argued, according to the video.
&#8220;He&#8217;s, like, such an idiot,&#8221; the activist said, allegedly referring to Kemp. &#8220;Like his wife does a lot of stuff on education here as a former teacher, so she does like book donations and those books are just like,&#8221; Bostic added, rolling his eyes.
Asked what Marty Kemp would do if she found out about his CRT scheme, Bostic responded, &#8220;Oh I would get nailed, for sure.&#8221; Bostic suggested his &#8220;business license&#8221; would be taken away, but noted he could just go on to consult.
The activist noted that teachers are really the ones on the hook for the content, since they are the ones buying it.
Back in April 2022, Kemp <a href="https://newschannel9.com/news/local/georgia-governor-signs-crt-ban-parental-rights-bill-into-law-as-election-looms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed</a> legislation to promote curriculum transparency for parents and banned divisive theories like CRT in the classroom.
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I worked with the General Assembly to pass a Parents&#39; Bill of Rights, ban Critical Race Theory, stop divisive concepts in schools, and protect fairness in girls sports. I&#39;m proud of my record on education, putting parents and students first. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GAGovDebate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GAGovDebate</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GAgov?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GAgov</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WSBDebate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WSBDebate</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gapol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#gapol</a> <a href="https://t.co/6kwPQ1Aqrr">pic.twitter.com/6kwPQ1Aqrr</a>
&mdash; Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrianKempGA/status/1518371802589929472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2022</a></blockquote>
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On Bostic&#8217;s website promoting his work, he&#8217;s described as an &#8220;equity, diversity, and inclusion specialist&#8221; with &#8220;a reputable career in the field of early childhood and elementary education.&#8221;
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&#8220;With a vast amount of experience as a language and literacy content developer, public speaker, equity, diversity, and inclusion specialist, Quintin has built a reputable career in the field of early childhood and elementary education,&#8221; the site <a href="https://drquintinbostic.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">boasts</a>. &#8220;Quintin&#8217;s Ph.D. research examines how ideas of race, racism, and power are communicated through children&#8217;s picturebooks. He currently serves as a Partnerships Manager for the Teaching Lab. Quintin also serves as the Antiracism Co-Chair for the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS).&#8221;
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BREAKING: <a href="https://twitter.com/TeachingLabHQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TeachingLabHQ</a> Director <a href="https://twitter.com/DrQuintinBostic?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DrQuintinBostic</a> Admits Violating State Law; Sells Critical Race Theory Curriculum to Schools
&#39;If you don&#39;t say the word &quot;critical race theory,&quot; you can teach it&#8230;I&#39;m an evil salesman&#8230;They[State] have no clue&#8230;He&#39;s[<a href="https://twitter.com/GovKemp?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GovKemp</a>] such an idiot&#39; <a href="https://t.co/w854nzBeVX">pic.twitter.com/w854nzBeVX</a>
&mdash; Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) <a href="https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas/status/1615484136197701632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-reinstates-undercover-journalism-enterprise-project-veritas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter Reinstates Undercover Journalism Enterprise Project Veritas</a>

Symbol image Critical Race Theory

Project Veritas Appears To Catch Activist Boasting About Selling Illegal CRT Curriculum To Indoctrinate Kids, Mocking Gov. Kemp 

Project Veritas Catches Activist Quintin Bostic Boasting About Selling Illegal CRT Curriculum To Indoctrinate Kids, Mocks Gov. Kemp 

Brian Kemp

Georgia

Project Veritas

Woke culture is actively destroying the dream that civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of in his famous &#8220;I have a dream&#8221; speech, forcing people back into a society where they are not only defined primarily by skin color but assigned value based on it as well.
The values have changed in a culture that now advocates for &#8220;antiracism&#8221; — defined by active steps taken to effectively unmake the racist institutions by implementing a new discrimination that favors those who were previously the victims of discrimination in order to artificially elevate them and even the score.
President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration is already hard at work on those efforts — as he said during his Monday speech honoring Dr. King — particularly with regard to housing.
WATCH:
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Biden began by saying that simply on the basis of who lived in the homes, houses in predominantly white neighborhoods had higher real estate values than houses in predominantly black neighborhoods — and his administration planned to correct that.
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to aggressively, aggressively combat racial discrimination in housing including working to restore the rule that says if a community gets a federal housing aid, it&#8217;s not enough just to say it won&#8217;t discriminate. It has to be meaningful, affirmative steps to overcome patterns of segregation,&#8221; Biden said. &#8220;And give everybody a fair shot that lives there.&#8221;
So how does woke culture — and Biden&#8217;s agenda — line up with the dream Dr. King outlined so many years ago?
&#8220;So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. King said</a> from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.
But <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/what-is-critical-race-theory-breaking-down-the-ideology-thats-hitting-schools-across-the-country/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critical Race Theory</a> turns those &#8220;self-evident&#8221; truths on their heads, teaching even young children that being born with a certain skin color conveys a certain level of &#8220;privilege.&#8221; Born into the original sin of racism based on nothing deeper than their skin color, white children are expected to strive to acknowledge their &#8220;privilege&#8221; and atone for it in educational and social situations.
&#8220;I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,&#8221; King continued.
But college campuses across the United States have embraced the move to adopt &#8220;safe spaces&#8221; for people of color — where white people are not allowed — that look suspiciously like little more than segregation under a new name.
&#8220;People of color need their own spaces. Black people need their own spaces,&#8221; Kelsey Blackwell wrote in a <a href="https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/officeofthemayor/2019/whypeopleofcolorneedspaceswithoutwhitepeople1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2018 piece</a> published on the official website of Cambridge, Massachusetts. &#8220;We need spaces where we can be our authentic selves without white people’s judgment and insecurity muzzling that expression. We need spaces where we can simply be—where we can get off the treadmill of making white people comfortable and finally realize just how tired we are.&#8221;
King&#8217;s speech continues: &#8220;I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.&#8221;
But anti-racism advocates like Dr. Ibram X. Kendi call for a different nation — one that uses past instances of discrimination to intentionally introduce a &#8220;new discrimination&#8221; in an effort to settle the score.
Kendi writes that it&#8217;s not the discrimination itself that is racist — but rather the intent behind the discrimination that can be problematic. But if the goal is to restore &#8220;equity,&#8221; he argues, then the discrimination is not only &#8220;antiracist&#8221; but a laudable pursuit.
&#8220;If discrimination is creating equity [minority wealth], then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist &#8230; The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.&#8221;
There are some who have pushed back against woke culture, however, like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Rice explained during a 2021 appearance on ABC&#8217;s midday talk show &#8220;The View&#8221; that she believed it was possible to teach young black students that they were valuable and valued – and capable of accomplishing anything they were willing to work for — without teaching them that they must drag other students down in order to do so.
Explaining that she herself had grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, when the south was still segregated — and she spent much of her childhood unable to go out to dinner or a movie with her parents — Rice said that what her parents had taught her had always stuck with her.
&#8220;My parents never thought I was going to grow up in a world without prejudice, but they also told me, ‘That’s somebody else’s problem, not yours. You’re going to overcome it, and you are going to be anything you want to be.’ And that’s the message that I think we ought to be sending to kids,&#8221; she said.
She went on to add that her main concern with academic exercises like Critical Race Theory was that it attempted to solve the problem of racism by simply finding a place to lay blame for it.
&#8220;One of the worries that I have about the way that we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past. I don’t think that’s very productive,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Or black people have to feel disempowered by race. I would like black kids to be completely empowered, to know that they are beautiful in their blackness, but in order to do that, I don’t have to make white kids feel bad for being white.&#8221;
Rice argued that the conversation about race — aided by CRT and other social drivers — had been steered in the &#8220;wrong direction,&#8221; away from the equality that activists like King had dreamed of.
&#8220;Let Freedom ring,&#8221; King concluded his iconic speech. &#8220;And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God&#8217;s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.&#8221;

President Biden Attends The National Action Network’s Annual MLK Day Breakfast In D.C.

How Biden’s Agenda And Woke Culture Are Destroying MLK’s ‘Dream’

Martin Luther King Jr.

Racism

Readers Pass

Social Issues

Woke Culture

<a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/federal-reserve" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Federal Reserve</a> Chair Jerome Powell said that the central bank will refrain from advancing social policy, especially with respect to <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/climate-change" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate change</a>.
Powell remarked in a Tuesday <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/powell20230110a.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech</a> delivered in Sweden that elected lawmakers and monetary policymakers should pursue their distinct mandates. He called on fellow central bankers to “stick to our knitting” and not “wander off to pursue perceived social benefits that are not tightly linked to our statutory goals and authorities.”
“Some analysts ask whether incorporating into bank supervision the perceived risks associated with climate change is appropriate, wise, and consistent with our existing mandates,” Powell said. “Addressing climate change seems likely to require policies that would have significant distributional and other effects on companies, industries, regions, and nations. Decisions about policies to directly address climate change should be made by the elected branches of government and thus reflect the public&#8217;s will as expressed through elections.”
The Federal Reserve has recently introduced programs meant to evaluate perceived “climate-related financial risks.” Policymakers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-reserve-will-evaluate-climate-related-financial-risks-with-help-from-bidens-new-climate-officer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> an initiative with six of the nation’s largest banks to examine various risk scenarios posed by climate change, although no “capital consequences” would emerge from the exercise. Officials also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-treasury-advisory-committee-on-racial-equity-to-be-led-by-defund-the-police-advocate-former-philadelphia-mayor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> plans to work with the Treasury Department to consider the private sector’s approach to climate risk.
Other nations’ central banks, including the Bank of England, have formerly conducted <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/stress-testing/2022/results-of-the-2021-climate-biennial-exploratory-scenario" target="_blank" rel="noopener">similar initiatives</a> meant to help executives navigate a transition to an economy with net zero emissions. The Federal Reserve routinely runs <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-reserve-stress-test-shows-big-banks-will-be-fine-through-the-next-recession" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stress tests</a> to determine whether the financial sector is able to weather various economic crises.
Powell nevertheless added that the Federal Reserve, in his view, has a “narrow” but “important” responsibility with respect to climate risks, largely by way of bank supervision. He clarified that using monetary policy or supervisory tools to “promote a greener economy” would be “inappropriate for us,” adding that the Federal Reserve will never be a &#8220;climate policymaker.&#8221;
Federal Reserve officials have recently grappled with record inflation that has presented obstacles to economic growth following the lockdown-induced recession. Policymakers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-federal-reserve-hikes-target-interest-rates-half-a-percentage-point" target="_blank" rel="noopener">raised rates</a> by three-quarters of a percentage point on four consecutive occasions last year before implementing a half-percent increase last month, causing higher rates across the economy.
The speech from Powell comes after multiple Democratic lawmakers proposed enacting legislation that would incorporate racial equity goals into the Federal Reserve mandate, which currently centers upon maximum employment and price stability. The Federal Reserve Racial and Economic Equity Act, which passed the House of Representatives last year, would require central bankers to minimize and eliminate “racial disparities in employment, wages, wealth, and access to affordable credit,” as well as submit labor force trends to lawmakers with “a comparison among different demographic groups, including race, gender, and educational attainment,” according to a <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-waters-gillibrand-reintroduce-their-bill-requiring-the-fed-to-close-racial-employment-and-wage-gaps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> from the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“Long before the pandemic hit people of color the hardest, my colleagues and I had called on the Federal Reserve to fix systemic barriers,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) remarked. “The current crisis has only further highlighted the fact that we need all hands on deck, including the Federal Reserve, to take action to address racial equity.&#8221;

Fed Chair Jerome Powell Delivers Semiannual Monetary Report At Senate Hearing

‘Stick To Our Knitting’: Federal Reserve Will Not Dabble In Social Policy, Jerome Powell Says

Federal Reserve Will Not Dabble In Social Policy, Jerome Powell Says

Climate Change

Economy

Federal Reserve

The office of Governor <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/ron-desantis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ron DeSantis</a> (R-FL) requested information on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">diversity</a> expenditures from state universities.
A <a href="https://twitter.com/BryanDGriffin/status/1610710708135821312/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a> addressed to Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz and Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, which was sent on December 28 and posted to social media on Wednesday by DeSantis Press Secretary Bryan Griffin, told the officials to gather data on diversity initiatives in the higher education system as the Florida legislature begins to consider budget proposals.
“It is important that we have a full understanding of the operational expenses of state institutions,” the memo said. “This letter is a request for information from the Department of Education and the State University System regarding the expenditure of state resources on programs and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and critical race theory within our state colleges and universities.”
For each initiative, university administrators were told to include a brief description of the program, the number of staff positions associated with the program, the total funding used to support the program, and the portion of the funding that came from taxpayer dollars.
Numerous reports have noted the inflow of capital into the nascent diversity sector, which garnered attention following the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. Public universities in Michigan, Maryland, Virginia, and Illinois employed diversity officials who pocketed salaries ranging from $329,000 to $430,000, according to a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/college-diversity-inclusion-officers-rake-sky-high-salaries-debt-saddled-students-face-rising-costs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from Fox News, while an <a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/diversity-university-dei-bloat-the-academy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Heritage Foundation found that colleges hire an average of three diversity staffers for every 100 tenured faculty.
“State legislatures, boards of higher education, and university trustees should investigate the extent of resources devoted to DEI personnel at the universities they oversee and subsidize,” the conservative think tank concluded. “Stakeholders should demand evidence about whether DEI resources are necessary and effective for achieving appropriate goals.”
DeSantis, who entered a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/freedom-lives-here-ron-desantis-sworn-in-for-second-term-as-florida-governor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second term</a> as chief executive of the Sunshine State after a landslide reelection victory, has enacted a number of reforms meant to combat the spread of Critical Race Theory. The official <a href="https://www.flgov.com/2021/06/22/governor-ron-desantis-signs-legislation-to-set-the-pace-for-civics-education-in-america/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed</a> Senate Bill 1108 and House Bill 233 into law two years ago; the former piece of legislation “requires state college and state university students to take both a civic literacy course and a civic literacy assessment as a graduation requirement,” while the latter “requires state colleges and universities to conduct annual assessments of the viewpoint diversity and intellectual freedom at their institutions.”
Reforms in the primary and secondary education systems drew ire from leftists as media outlets and large corporations contended that the new parental rights laws discriminated against proponents of the LGBTQ movement. One such statute <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/desantis-signs-parental-notification-bill-shrugs-off-dont-say-gay-uproar" target="_blank" rel="noopener">prohibited</a> instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity for students between kindergarten and third grade.
“We must ensure school systems are responsive to parents and to students, not partisan interest groups, and we must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology,” DeSantis reiterated during his second inaugural <a href="https://www.flgov.com/2023/01/03/governor-desantis-delivers-inaugural-address-sets-priorities-for-second-term/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">address</a>. “We will enact more family-friendly policies to make it easier to raise children and we will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to supporters at a campaign

DeSantis Puts Woke Colleges On Notice, Tells Them To Hand Over Diversity Receipts

DeSantis Tells Colleges To Fork Over Diversity Receipts

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Wokeness

An academic critic admitted that he was wrong about the influence leftist scholars would have in mainstream culture.
Russell Jacoby, author and professor emeritus of history at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), wrote a book in 1987 dismissing conservatives’ fears that students of postmodernism and critical pedagogy would wreak havoc on American culture. Now, 35 years later in an <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/takeover-russell-jacoby" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> for Tablet, he admits that conservatives were right.
“In 1987 I published &#8216;The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe&#8217; which elicited heated responses,” said Jacoby. “Only now do I see I got something wrong — as did my critics.”
Jacoby said he wrote the book in response to a number of bestselling books in the eighties that speculated that various offshoots of Marxist-derived Critical Theories taught in universities would produce leftist activists that would bring chaos to Western civilization.
“I argued that the conservatives should awake from their nightmare of radical scholars destroying America and relax; academic revolutionaries preoccupied themselves with their careers and perks,” said Jacoby. “If they made waves, they were confined to the campus pool.”
At the time Jacoby believed that these academics were too consumed with advancing their careers within the campus walls to concern themselves with public discourse. 
“They penned unreadable articles and books for colleagues,” said Jacoby. “They were less subversive than submissive.”
Now Jacoby realizes he “missed something” that was not obvious to him at the time he wrote the book: “the dawning takeover of the public sphere by campus denizens and lingo.”
As a historian of intellectuals and education, Jacoby attributes this to the changing university landscape over the decades. There were only a small number of public leftists teaching in American universities in the 1950s. By the 1980s, their numbers had rapidly expanded, but in the 1990s the proliferation of universities across the nation halted, especially for the Humanities. The jobs they would have assumed as university faculty were no longer available in many fields.
“In my own department in 10 years we went from accepting over a hundred students for graduate study to under 20 for a simple reason,” said Jacoby. “We could not place our students.” 
“The hordes who took courses in critical pedagogy, insurgent sociology, gender studies, radical anthropology, Marxist cinema theory, and postmodernism could no longer hope for university careers,” he added. 
As a result, the leftists who would have become university professors had to join the workforce, bringing with them the “sensibilities and jargon they learned on campus.”
“It is the exodus from the universities that explains what is happening in the larger culture,” said Jacoby. “The leftists who would have vanished as assistant professors in conferences on narratology and gender fluidity or disappeared as law professors with unreadable essays on misogynist hegemony and intersectionality have been pushed out into the larger culture.”
“They staff the ballooning diversity and inclusion commissariats that assault us with vapid statements and inane programs couched in the language they learned in school,” Jacoby continued. “We are witnessing the invasion of the public square by the campus, an intrusion of academic terms and sensibilities that has leaped the ivy-covered walls aided by social media.”
“The buzz words of the campus — diversity, inclusion, microaggression, power differential, white privilege, group safety — have become the buzz words in public life. Already confusing on campus, they become noxious off campus,” he added.
Jacoby went on to describe the various manifestations of activist-capture in our trusted institutions in recent years, including when the New York Times published an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> by Republican Senator Tom Cotton advocating for military intervention during the George Floyd riots in 2020, and the paper’s staffers said they felt that the piece put them “in danger.” The article caused such public outrage that the op-ed editor, James Bennett, was forced to apologize and resign.
“When employees protest that they feel unsafe because their company is publishing an offensive article or book, we know what university courses they have taken,” said Jacoby. 
“When the ACLU drops any mention of the First Amendment from its annual reports; when one of its directors declares, ‘First Amendment protections are disproportionately enjoyed by people of power and privilege’; and when its [sic] counsels its own lawyers to balance free speech and &#8216;offense to marginalized groups,&#8217; we know they studied critical race theory,” he continued.
The article is a marked departure from Jacoby’s previously held views, as he now recognizes that opposition to freedom of speech comes almost exclusively from the Left. 
“The self-righteous professors have spawned self-righteous students who filter into the public square,” Jacoby said. “The former prospered in their campus enclaves by plumping each other’s brilliance, but they left the rest of us alone.” 
“The latter, their students, however, constitute an unmitigated disaster, intellectually and politically, as they enter the workforce,” he concluded.
<a href="https://twitter.com/Evolutionistrue" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jerry Coyne</a>, a prolific evolutionary biologist and author of the bestselling book, “Why Evolution Is True,” hosts a website by the same name where he <a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/12/23/progressive-professors-the-root-of-all-evil/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> about Jacoby’s article.
“There’s no solution offered by Jacoby, just a big kvetch about how things are,” said Coyne. “And, indeed, given that the ‘studies mills’ are still grinding out students who can’t get academic jobs and will thus infest university administrations and the media for years to come, I’ll have been long underground when and if this movement dies out.” 
The world-famous biologist Richard Dawkins <a href="https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1606379832455188482?s=20&amp;t=QBDDrRYx7ijvy5es3cvCSg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared</a> Coyne’s review, “Progressive professors: the root of all evil,” to his Twitter followers on Friday. Elon Musk even chimed in on Dawkins’ post and <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1606547770541838337?s=20&amp;t=QBDDrRYx7ijvy5es3cvCSg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, “True, ‘progressive’ professors are the root of this evil.”

California Critical Race Theory

UCLA Professor Admits Conservatives’ Fears Were Justified About Leftist Academics In The Workforce

'I Was Wrong': UCLA Professor Admits Conservatives' Fears Were Justified About Leftist Academics In The Workforce

Academia

Marxism

A California school district voted this week to ban <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/critical-race-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critical Race Theory</a> from being taught in its schools.
In a 3-2 vote, the Temecula Valley Unified School District in southern <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/california" target="_blank" rel="noopener">California</a> voted to ban schools from teaching CRT. The vote came at the end of a marathon session on Tuesday night that ran into the wee hours of Wednesday morning; a new conservative majority had just been sworn in at the beginning of the meeting.
&#8220;The TVUSD desires to uplift and unite students by not imposing the responsibility of historical transgressions in the past and instead will engage students of all cultures in age-appropriate critical thinking that helps students navigate the past, present, and future,&#8221; the resolution banning CRT stated.
The school board&#8217;s <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/614039805/Critical-Race-Theory-Resolution#download" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> makes clear that teachers are not required to violate state, local, or federal law, and maintains that they adhere to the curriculum adopted by the board as the primary source for the context of instruction. The resolution also states that the board respects diversity.
&#8220;[R]acism has no place in American society and especially not in the Temecula Valley Unified School District,&#8221; the resolution stated. &#8220;[T]he TVUSD condemns racism and will not tolerate racism and racist conduct.&#8221; The <a href="https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/12/14/critical-race-theory-debated-by-temecula-school-board/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">East Bay Times</a> reported that the board passed another resolution condemning racism.
The resolution continued, explicitly condemning Critical Race Theory as &#8220;an ideology based on false assumptions about the United States of America and its population,&#8221; the foundation of which was based on an &#8220;artificial distortion of the traditional definition of &#8216;racism.'&#8221;
The board also explicitly condemned CRT as a racist ideology in itself, which assigns generational and racial guilt for conduct far in the past; violates the principle of equal protection under the law; and detracts from the underlying causes of real societal problems by framing all social issues as racial issues. &#8220;Critical Race Theory or other similar frameworks will not be used as a source to guide how topics related to race will be taught,&#8221; the board said.
The resolution then banned all of the following core tenets of Critical Race Theory from being taught:
<ol>
<li>&#8220;Racism is racial prejudice plus power, a concept that is often used to argue that (i) only individuals classified as &#8220;white&#8221; people can be racist because only &#8220;white&#8221; people control society and (ii) individuals in ethnic minorities cannot be racist because they do not control society.</li>
<li>Racism is ordinary and the usual way society operates</li>
<li>&#8220;Interest convergence&#8221; or &#8220;material determinism&#8221;; the idea that moving away from racist policies is motivated primarily by the oppressor class&#8217;s own self-interest.</li>
<li>&#8220;Differential racialization,&#8221; the idea that society racializes different minorities according to the needs of the labor market.</li>
<li>The &#8220;voice-of-color&#8221; thesis, the belief that minority groups are inherently better equipped to speak about race and racism.</li>
</ol>
The resolution also banned many core teachings that have their origins in CRT. Specifically, that because of their race or sex, an individual:
<ul>
<li>inherently racist or sexist, consciously or unconsciously;</li>
<li>a member of either and oppressor or an oppressed class;</li>
<li>inherently morally superior or inferior to another race;</li>
<li>should be discriminated against or receive favorable treatment on the basis of race or sex;</li>
<li>bears responsibility for past actions committed by other members of the same group;</li>
<li>should feel guilty or discomforted on the basis of race or sex</li>
</ul>
Furthermore, the resolution banned the idea that meritocracy, hard work, or the scientific method are inherently racist or sexist or were created by members of one race to oppress another. It also banned the core principle of the &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/1619-project" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1619 Project</a>,&#8221; that the advent of slavery in the American colonies was the real founding of the United States, and that the Revolution and American independence from Britain was partly an effort to preserve slavery.
The resolution does allow for some teaching of CRT, but only as a small role and in ways that focus on its faults.

School board discusses critical race theory

California School Board Bans Schools From Teaching Critical Race Theory In First Meeting After Being Sworn In

California

Race

School Boards

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/raphael-warnock" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Raphael Warnock</a>’s church is a part of a leftist coalition that supports <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/critical-race-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critical Race Theory</a> (CRT) and suggests the first slave ship’s arrival in the U.S. is as equally definitive founding event as the writing of the Declaration of Independence or Constitution.
The Georgia Democrat is the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, the “spiritual home of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” The church is a member of the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC), a body of leftist faith groups that back such causes as CRT and <a href="https://freebeacon.com/democrats/warnocks-church-belongs-to-coalition-that-wants-to-end-military-aid-to-israel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ending</a> U.S. military aid to Israel.
Warnock won election to the Senate in a special election in January 2021 but retained his spot as Ebenezer’s senior pastor. He is engaged in a runoff election against Republican Herschel Walker to retain the Senate seat. The election is scheduled for December 6.
Warnock, as the head of Ebenezer Baptist Church, had close ties to the PNBC and served as the chairman of the convention’s Social Justice Commission as recently as 2018. Later that year, he <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/08/05/warnock-progressive-national-baptists-focus-on-voting-rights-during-annual-meeting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">delivered</a> the keynote address to PNBC’s annual meeting.
In 2021, the PNBC passed a “Resolution in Support of Critical Race Theory.” The resolution states that CRT is “taught primarily at Law Schools” and is not taught at all in any elementary or high schools in the U.S. Warnock <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/08/05/warnock-progressive-national-baptists-focus-on-voting-rights-during-annual-meeting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">delivered</a> the keynote address to PNBC’s annual meeting the year the resolution was adopted.
“CRT is not a racist theory,” the <a href="https://www.pnbc.org/assets/uploads/2021/09/pnbc-resolutions-2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resolution</a> states. “Rather, it asserts that a true understanding of the history and evolution of this country cannot be fully grasped without giving thoughtful consideration to the way in which sustained, systemic, institutional racism has been at work in every aspect of American life since before the nation was even formed.”
The resolution also suggests that the year 1619, when the first slave ship arrived on the shores of what would become the United States, is as equally defining date in U.S. history as 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and 1787, when the U.S. Constitution was written.
“PNBC goes on record acknowledging, consistent with the core principle of CRT, that racism is not the behavior of a single white person. Racism is the use of political power and social conformity by one group that creates systems that have historically afforded white people an unfair advantage,” the resolution states. “The problem for CRT is not individual white people, but the presumptions of white supremacy and the inherited benefits of white privilege that have been at work in this country for more than four hundred years.”
Last year, Warnock <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/senate-democrats-show-their-support-for-critical-race-theory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted</a> against an amendment that would restrict federal funding from being used “to promote critical race theory or compel teachers or students to affirm critical race theory in prekindergarten programs, elementary schools, and secondary schools.”
In part, Warnock’s 2021 keynote address to PNBC focused on election laws in Georgia and what he claimed was voter suppression.
“If we don’t check what they’re doing in Georgia, they’ll be able to nullify the votes and the voices of the people after they have already been cast,” Warnock <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/08/05/warnock-progressive-national-baptists-focus-on-voting-rights-during-annual-meeting/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
“This is the delta variant of Jim Crow voting laws. The only inoculation is federal legislation and the only way that happens is for God’s people to stand up. So thank you, Progressive, for standing up. Thank you for bearing witness to God’s love and God’s justice in the world,” he added.

Raphael Warnock

Raphael Warnock’s Church Belongs To A Leftist Group That Supports Critical Race Theory

In New York and California, institutions of higher <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/education">education</a> bought into wokeness wholesale years ago, but now schools in red states have been infected as well.
In Texas and Florida, several prominent schools have made diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) a priority.
The University of Texas at Austin has been on a years-long journey to appease students demanding the school double down on DEI initiatives.
Austin is a blue area in red Texas, so it&#8217;s not a complete surprise that the dogma of DEI has taken hold there. However, it signals that red states are not immune to their local universities foisting woke values on their young people and communities.
Back in 2018, UT-Austin released a seven-page DEI <a href="https://utexas.app.box.com/s/86ufnux2332hw8ndq7ulib5vc7hfl65u">plan</a> responding to <a href="https://diversity.utexas.edu/actionplan/background/">student demands</a>. In 2020, students <a href="https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/ut-students-release-list-of-demands-for-transformative-change">presented</a> the school with yet <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qj017DGgEi0lH5zkSZIVTwPIPfI4uw971cvvRpWTZf8/edit">another slate</a> of demands, including that Austin police be removed from campus, that admissions adopt a test-optional admissions process, and that the school require students to learn about the &#8220;racist background&#8221; of the university&#8217;s origins.
UT-Austin responded with a new 29-page DEI <a href="https://utexas.app.box.com/s/07gro61mcobe0gkpae0jp9gnfrlzwmzb">plan</a>, and since then the school has implemented DEI in various ways.
In one example, the <a href="https://dellmed.utexas.edu/blog/understanding-health-in-equity-a-list-of-recommendations">reading list</a> published by the medical school&#8217;s Associate Dean for Health Equity includes titles by authors who are essentially the patron saints of woke. The list includes &#8220;How To Be An Antiracist&#8221; by Ibram X. Kendi and &#8220;White Fragility&#8221; by Robin DiAngelo as well as an essay called &#8220;White Privilege: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack.&#8221;
&#8220;Racism contributes to health inequity,&#8221; the associate dean writes.
UT-Austin has also embedded DEI into its tenure and promotion policies, saying that each school will &#8220;develop mechanisms for evaluating faculty contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their units for considerations of merit and promotion,&#8221; according to UT-Austin&#8217;s strategic <a href="https://utexas.app.box.com/s/g74axpkhbneupxotfcbvtrpqxil7vhv8">plan</a> for faculty DEI.
In addition, new faculty positions are infused with DEI.
UT-Austin&#8217;s Religious Studies department is currently <a href="https://utaustin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/UTstaff/job/UT-MAIN-CAMPUS/Postdoctoral-Fellowship-in-Ancient-Mediterranean-Religions_R_00023625">hiring</a> an early Christianity scholar to research topics including the &#8220;religious identities&#8221; of &#8220;sexual minorities&#8221; and &#8220;feminist and intersectional interpretation of biblical texts.&#8221;
UT-Austin is not the only prominent school in Texas that has embraced DEI.
The Texas A&amp;M system, whose flagship school is the state&#8217;s oldest public university, has fully integrated DEI policies as well.
Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences recently hired an Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence. The school is also <a href="https://aglifesciences.tamu.edu/inclusive-excellence/">requiring</a> each department to establish a &#8220;climate committee.&#8221; Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s dentistry school has an entire Diversity and Inclusion <a href="https://dentistry.tamu.edu/education/academic-affairs/docs/diversity-and-inclusion-plan-approved-092217.pdf">Plan</a> of its own that actually cites UT-Austin&#8217;s plan as a resource. In 2020, Texas A&amp;M&#8217;s School of Education &amp; Human Development (SEHD) <a href="https://mysehd.tamu.edu/oie/">created</a> an “Equity &amp; Social Justice Collective.”
Yet another Texas school, Texas Tech University, has <a href="https://www.depts.ttu.edu/biology/resources/diversity/docs/Diversity_Statement_Rubric.pdf">strict rules</a> for its biology department on evaluating faculty candidates based on how they talk about diversity.
The department must take into account whether faculty candidates &#8220;discuss diversity in vague terms,&#8221; &#8220;seem uncomfortable discussing diversity-related issues,&#8221; or seem unaware of &#8220;personal challenges that underrepresented individuals face in academia.&#8221;
In Florida, where the Republican governor <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/08/us/elections/results-florida-governor.html">cruised</a> to victory by double digits this month, DEI is pervasive at many schools.
The University of Central Florida has an active DEI office that <a href="https://diversity.ucf.edu/odi-land-acknowledgement-statement/">includes</a> a &#8220;land acknowledgement,&#8221; essentially a statement acknowledging that the university&#8217;s land traditionally belongs to Native American tribes.
The University of Florida, where retiring Republican Senator Ben Sasse will take over as university president next year, has a DEI office and strategy as well.
The school&#8217;s Office of the Chief Diversity Officer <a href="https://www.cdo.ufl.edu/initiatives/inclusive-excellence-blueprint/">boasts</a> that University of Florida has more than 1,000 unique DEI initiatives.
Unless a school is specifically counter-cultural, as some <a href="https://www.niche.com/colleges/thomas-more-college-of-liberal-arts/">private</a> <a href="https://www.niche.com/colleges/christendom-college/">religious</a> liberal arts colleges are, it is likely to have invested heavily in DEI, even if the school is in a red state.
Texas and Florida may be red, but their universities are very much not.

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